


Alive With the Glory of Love

by fracturedmoonlight



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Friendship/Love, M/M, the 1930s Germany AU no one wanted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-21 01:48:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4810286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fracturedmoonlight/pseuds/fracturedmoonlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Each night, Levi Ackerman writes a story for the end of the world. He writes of men and women who are hollowed out, dreams rotting and decaying until their bodies are nothing and their souls plummet into the earth. It is inevitable, he thinks, not morbid.</i>
</p><p>  <i>It is 1938 and the world is ending.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Alive With the Glory of Love

**Author's Note:**

> I'm taking drabble requests on my tumblr (lesserperfectsystem). Shoot me an ask and I'll do what I can when I'm bored. Unfortunately, this one ended up really sad. The request from user ereriere was: "ereri plus Levi saying 'I think I’m in love with you and I’m terrified' to Eren"

Each night, Levi Ackerman writes a story for the end of the world. He writes of men and women who are hollowed out, dreams rotting and decaying until their bodies are nothing and their souls plummet into the earth. It is inevitable, he thinks, not morbid.

It is 1938 and the world is ending.

\- - -

He is taken in by his uncle after his mother dies.

“Listen up, _Pitseleh,"_ Kenny begins, crouching down to look his nephew dead in the eye, his stale breath making Levi sneer right back at him, “you and me, we are _geshtroft_. You understand, yes? We are dead men walking.”

Levi spits in his face and receives a beating so awful he blacks out—but not before biting Kenny so hard he scars him.

When he comes to, Kenny tosses a switchblade onto his creaky, rusting cot. “I underestimated you.” Levi remembers that sick grin to this day, yellow teeth and all. “You are a _Kemfer_. You will learn quickly.”

Kenny is wrong about many things, but he is right about Levi.

\- - -

Levi meets Eren when he is fifteen. He does not believe in love. How could he, when he has seen innocent men shoved against walls and beaten until the cobblestone roads below are stained with blood so red that, even when the snow melts, it remains?

Levi never starts fights, nor does he lose them.

After he is roughed up by three boys, each one twice his size, he is left bruised and bloodied—though most of the blood is not his. He thinks one or more of his ribs may be broken, but it is a small price to pay. He grins to himself. He has broken Werner’s nose.

He slumps against the cool alley wall, a wave of nausea keeping him from leaving. He groans, despite himself, hoping that no one is around to see him. It would be shit for his reputation to be seen licking his wounds.

The next thing he knows, his chin is in someone else’s hand. His breath hitches and he scrambles backward, only to hit his head on the building he is propped up against. “ _Scheiße_ ,” the person in front of him hisses. “Don’t move.”

“Let me alone,” Levi growls, struggling to get out of the boy’s grip, which is unusually strong. The world tilts and becomes hazy. The boy’s other arm shoots out to keep him sitting up. Levi looks up and is met with a blurry world of gray and white and black permeated by an otherworldly green, a green that does not belong in the midst of a German winter.

“I am Eren Jaeger. From your class,” the boy says, as if that would make Levi stop trying to escape his grasp. He scowls, and adds, “My father, he is the town doctor.”

That makes Levi stop. Levi does not like to rely on others, but he also is not stupid. He knows that, at the very least, he has a concussion.

Eren Jaeger sits at the front of the class. He is one of the teacher’s favorites, though he is not a refined speaker and he does not make very high marks. His father is beloved in their small town, though, and so is Eren. His mother died when Eren was a child, but Levi does not know of what sickness.

He lets Eren help him to his feet and put his arm around him to keep him upright. Eren is too tall for this to be comfortable for either of them, but they manage to make it to Eren’s home without too much trouble. They do not speak.

Levi waits in the foyer as Eren strides to the back of his house. He hears him address his father, but the words are muffled. He hears the trepidation in the other boy’s voice when he says his name. His father pauses and speaks stiffly; Eren raises his voice. Finally, Grisha Jaeger emerges, Eren not far behind. Eren glares at the ground like it has done him wrong, and seeing his brows furrowed in such a way almost makes Levi laugh. He doesn’t, because he is unsure of whether or not his ribs are broken.

Grisha gives an exam, only asking him a few questions in a curt manner (“What happened?” “A fight.” “Is this painful?” “Yes.” “And this?” “Not so much.”) before diagnosing him with a broken rib and a concussion; It is about what Levi expected.

“It will heal itself, though the pain will stay for about a month. You will need to be careful,” Grisha says as Levi puts his shirt back on.

Levi thanks him quietly. Grisha watches him for a moment then leaves to return to the back rooms of Eren’s home. Eren, who had been there the whole time, comes over to where Levi is seated on the couch. “I will walk you home,” he declares, and Levi just stares at him blankly.

“Eren?” Grisha’s voice comes from the back room. Eren rolls his eyes and scowls.

“ _Moment_ ,” Eren murmurs, and makes his way into the back room.

Grisha’s voice is raised this time. He says something that makes Eren raise his voice in turn. Now, Levi can hear actual words.

“You must be careful, Eren. He is a—”

Something clatters to the ground, cutting him off. Levi grips his knees, hard. Eren says something that is too quiet for him to hear.

When he looks up, Eren is standing in front of him, face stony. “Let’s go,” he says, reaching out a hand to Levi. Flabbergasted, Levi finds himself being pulled to his feet.

They walk in complete silence until they stop in front of Levi’s door a few blocks away. For the first time in his life, Levi is ashamed of the grimy area he lives in. Eren looks horribly out of place; his clothes are too well taken care of, his skin too smooth.

His eyes too bright.

“Open your hands,” Eren says lowly. Levi does not know why he keeps acquiescing, why he keeps going along with whatever Eren tells him to do. He blames the concussion, and opens his hands.

Eren’s hands cover his, large as they are. Something—many somethings, small somethings—fall into his palms. When Eren’s hands move away, he understands.

“I do not have the money,” he begins, unable to look up from the precious painkillers resting in his hands, but Eren shakes his head and puts a hand on his shoulder.

“A gift from a friend.” He says, and grins down at Levi like an absolute fool.

\- - -

They do not speak at school, but Levi’s marks begin to plummet because he spends more time staring at the back of Eren’s head in class than paying attention to their teacher. One day, Levi gets up to use the bathroom and feels someone elbow him in the side. He grits his teeth and ignores it, as usual.

When he goes to drop his trousers, however, something falls out of his pocket.  
  
_the stones in the meadow after school_ , it reads in a messy scrawl. He blinks.  
  
“What the…” he murmurs to himself, scratching his head as he pisses.

\- - -

“You came!” Eren brightens up and scrambles to his feet like Levi’s someone important.

Levi just looks at him like he’s an idiot.

The other boy must want something, he figures. He gave him those pills and made him believe that there was no price, but there is always a price. If there is anything Levi knows about this world, is that there is always a fucking price.  
  
“What do you need?” Levi bites out, glaring up at him, because now Eren is standing over him, that goofy grin still plastered on his face.

Eren’s face falls. “I don’t need anything.”

“I don’t understand.” Levi says flatly.

“How are your injuries healing?”

“Well.”

“That’s good!” Levi is trying very hard to be disgusted by Eren’s enthusiasm, but for some reason he is finding it nearly impossible. “Do you need to rush home?”

Levi opens his mouth to speak, but Eren beats him to it. “I’m sorry, I did not think. If you must get home, I can tell your uncle that I requested your help, we can leave now—”

“I do not need to be home,” Levi cuts him off.

“Oh.” That grin is back. “In that case, would you like to walk up the hill with me? There is a nice tree up there. It is quiet.”

\- - -

Levi meets Eren under that tree each day after school. It is a big thing, with a trunk wide enough for both of them to sit side to side and still have the same view down at the sprawling town below them. It is so small from where they sit. Everyone is so small. He says as much one day, and Eren laughs at him like he’s understood something his whole life that Levi is just then discovering.

The guilt presses at Levi each night, because Eren’s father was right to warn him. There have been more beatings lately. He has been able to avoid them; Eren has stopped many fights by pretending to need something from Werner or his friends when the tension rises, but Levi does not like needing Eren’s protection when he knows he is offering the exact opposite.

Kenny says the world is ending. He tells Levi that he does not believe God will save them, but Levi sees him praying anyway.

\- - -

“I am bored,” Eren says one day.

Levi is in the midst of writing, scribbling in his school notebook. He is not the best writer, but when he stopped fighting, he began writing. Eren glances at his hands pointedly. They are seated shoulder-to-shoulder like they always are, so Eren can easily read what he is writing.

Levi covers up his writing with both his hands. “Don’t,” he complains, but Eren pouts.

“What is it, a diary?” Eren asks with a small laugh.

“No, a story,” Levi mutters, the tips of his ears red. He hears Eren make an excited noise in the back of his throat.

“Read it to me! Please?” He begs.

Levi guffaws. “Not a chance.”

“Come on, Levi! I won’t laugh, even if it’s terrible. I will pat you on the back and tell you it is the best story I have ever been told, I promise.” Eren pats his heart to emphasize his earnest words.

Levi denies him, Eren whines; this goes on for some time until finally Levi gives in.

When Levi finishes, Eren is uncharacteristically quiet.

“A love story?” He asks finally, his voice barely more than an inquisitive whisper.

Levi hadn’t even realized. He’d begun ages ago, when he’d stopped paying attention to their teacher and, instead, would watch the way Eren’s head would bob right as he tried to stay awake, or the way his hand made big looping curls as he wrote—

Levi gulps.

\- - -

One day, Kenny does not come home. Levi sits on his old, creaky cot (the thing is almost too small for him now, though Levi did not grow much, really) and has to remind himself to breathe for several hours.

He does not go to school the next day. Instead, he sits at the tree—his and Eren’s—and burns every piece of paper he wrote his story on. It is unfinished, but Levi does not care. Love does not exist in this world.

When Eren shows up, he is furious. He screams at him. He is crying. “How could you, how could you!” He wails over and over again, his hands covered in the ashes that were once Levi’s words.

Levi’s love stains Eren’s hands black.

\- - -

Each night, Levi Ackerman writes a story for the end of the world. He writes about two boys who hold hands beneath a tree. “I am in love with you, and I am terrified,” the first boy says to the second. Men come to take the first boy away, and God does not save him. The second boy is taken, too, because he believed in love, and love is a lie and lying is a sin.

Each night, Levi Ackerman burns the page he has written and lets the ash stain his hands black.

**Author's Note:**

> There are a few Yiddish words used, and their rough translations are as follows:  
>  _Pitsele_ – small child (used condescendingly in this case)  
>  _geshtroft_ – cursed, being punished for something  
>  _Kemfer_ – fighter (someone who fights for something, so it's a bit more metaphorical? haha language is hard)


End file.
